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With the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development launched in March 2005, we have a unique opportunity for a global dialogue on the theory and practice of education for sustainable development (ESD). This issue of Earth Ethics provides a diversity of perspectives on the nature of sustainable development, and education to foster it, as a contribution to this ongoing dialogue.

Seven Common Sustainability Themes, by Andres Edwards. He identifies the following as seven themes common to various perspectives on sustainability: Stewardship, Respect for limits, Interdependence, Economic restructuring, Fair distribution, Intergenerational perspective, and Nature as a model and teacher. Edwards, A. R. 2005. The Sustainability Revolution: Portrait of a Paradigm Shift. New Society Publishers, 128-130.

Defining Environmentally Sustainable Development, by Ismail Serageldin. What is environmentally sustainable development? The Brundtland Commission definition states that sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. That definition is philosophically acceptable, but not operationallly useful. Better progress must be mde to integrate the viewpoints of three disciplines:
• The economists, whose methods seek to maximize human welfare within the constraints of existing capital stock and technologies.
• The ecologists, who stress preserving the integrity of ecological sub-systems, although a less extreme view aims at maintaining the resilience and dynamic adaptability of natural life-support systems.
• The sociologists, who emphasize that the key actors are human beings, whose patterns of social organization are crucial for devising viable solutions to achieving sustainable development.
Any development proposal has to be tested against economic, ecological, and social sustainability. If we accept the view of sustainability as opportunity, one can define sustainability in terms of giving future generations as much or more capital per person than exists today.
But what kind of capital? Economists refer to man-made capital or produced assets. On the environmental side is natural capital. Sociologists draw attention to human capital and social capital. Sustainability is having, on a per capita basis, an amount of capital composed of all forms of capital that can be increased even though the composition may change over time.

Learning Our Way to a Sustainable and Desirable World: Ideas Inspired by Arne Naess and Deep Ecology, by Harold Glasser.